My Immortal
by ChicaFrom3
Summary: Cui Bono tag: Beka remembers her father. Songfic. Now Complete
1. Chapter 1

TITLE: My Immortal

AUTHOR: Kristen Kilar (chickadee(underscore)from(underscore)3(at)yahoo(dot)com)

RATING: T (PG). Drug use. Language. Angst.

DISCLAIMER: If I owned Andromeda, the writing staff would consist of Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Ethlie Ann Vare, and Gordon Michael Woolvett. Sadly, this isn't so. "My Immortal" belongs to Evanescence.

ARCHIVE: Sure, but please ask. I like to know where my babies are spending the night.

SUMMARY: "Cui Bono" tag: Beka remembers her father. Songfic.

SPOILERS: References to things mentioned in "The Ties That Blind", "The Pearls That Were His Eyes", "It Makes A Lovely Light", "Cui Bono", "Exalted Reason, Resplendent Daughter", and "Time Out Of Mind".

AUTHOR'S NOTES: charli and I traded plot bunnies. She knows how much I love Ignatius and sent over this adorable bunny singing Evanescence. The bunny even managed to briefly coax my muse out of his tequila-inspired stupor! Also, go read the fantastic stories she wrote with the plot bunnies I gave her in return – "My Worst Fear" and "Reflections".

So much love to charli, and I hope I did your bunny justice.

As always, much love to my darling beta, Allie/Myna/niki blue/rah rah replica, the best friend and beta a girl could have!

Please read and review.

* * *

I'm so tired of being here  
Suppressed by all my childish fears  
And if you have to leave  
I wish that you would just leave  
'Cause your presence still lingers here  
And it won't leave me alone

Old Earth Song Lyrics  
Evanescence  
circa 2000AD

* * *

I don't drink, did you know that? I don't drink. I don't squirt, I don't snort, I don't inhale, I don't—GAH! I've been straight-edged all my life, _all my life_, because I'm my daddy's little girl, and I don't want to be like my daddy.

Capt. Rebeka B. Valentine  
circa CY 10087

* * *

"Truth's a bitch," I'd told Dylan before leaving and coming back here to the _Maru_. Truer words were never spoken. 

The _Maru_ has always been my home. The one place in the universe that's mine, the one constant throughout my life.

My father's life.

Maybe Sid was right. Maybe Daddy did screw up my life.

Maybe he wasn't the hero I remember him as.

When I was a kid and he would come home drunk or high…sometimes he scared me. He had a temper when he was on Flash. He never laid a finger on me, but he hit Rafe more than once. He swore a lot and more than a few of the _Maru_'s dents came from him.

I hated seeing him like that.

So when I grew up, I was determined that I would not fall prey to the same sickness.

I didn't drink. I didn't do drugs. I was completely, teetotaler clean.

And I ended up addicted to Flash anyway.

In my own way, I ended up mimicking his downfall. I battled a Flash addiction. I fell in love with the guys who would lie to me and leave me the way my mother left my family.

Daddy loved Mom. It was obvious to everyone who ever saw him.

Mom was not quite so devoted to her husband. And then she left.

And our family was never the same again.

My longest, most stable relationship was with the darling Bobby Jensen, who lied to me and used me and left me over and over and over again and I let him, because I thought I loved him.

Maybe my father's life patterns really did scar me, because I haven't been doing much better with my life than he did with his.

When I was a teenager, at the height of my dad's addiction, I would cry at night, and wish that he'd just leave, go away and never come back, instead of leaving me in bits at a time, dying by stages while I watched helplessly.

And even now, when he's dead and gone for all these years, I'm still not alone. He's still here with me. In me. And I'm acting out the same old patterns, again and again.

The one memory of my childhood that won't stop nagging at me now is the sight of my wonderful dad, eyes white with Flash, barely aware of who I was, screaming at me in a paranoid fury while I tried to calm him down.

And I remember doing the exact same thing to Trance.

Maybe my father wasn't as good a man as I thought he was.

Maybe I'm reenacting his drama.

Damn Sid! Why do I suddenly doubt my own memories of Daddy?

Because of Sid and his insinuating, oh-so-innocent little remarks.

I hate him.

I hate him…because I can't hate my dad.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: **Vee017**: Thanks for reviewing! And just for you, here's the second installment.

* * *

These wounds won't seem to heal  
This pain is just too real  
There's just too much that time cannot erase

Old Earth Song Lyrics  
Evanescence  
circa 2000AD

* * *

Here I am, I'm streaking like a freakin' comet. You can't stop me. You can't stop a Valentine with a head full of steam, believe me, I know. I tried. Blood of my blood, Trance. What if it's in my blood? What if I can't stop?

Capt. Rebeka B. Valentine  
circa CY 10087

* * *

There are so many memories that I'd like to erase from my mind. 

Every fight Rafe and Dad had. Every screaming match my parents got into, before and after my mother left. Every Flash high. Every time he came back to the _Maru_ after being missing for days, drunk and sick and broke, barely able to recognize his own children. Every gift he took back, every promise he broke, every lie he told.

Finding him dead.

Oh, now, there's the perfect example.

I was sixteen. Rafe was long gone by them, and it was just me and Daddy on the _Maru_. He'd been getting sicker and sicker for months until finally he couldn't even get out of bed most days.

Then one day I brought him breakfast and realized he wasn't breathing.

That…that's an image I would like to destroy, and yet it's burned into my brain forever.

I tried to find a pulse, tried to resuscitate him, tried and tried and failed and at last I had to admit that he was gone.

He didn't weigh much more than me at that point. The drugs and the sickness had taken their toll. But it still wasn't easy for me to take him from his quarters, drag him across the ship, load him into a lifepod…and then eject him.

Leaving me utterly alone on the ship that had been my home since birth, the ship that was mine by right now.

There's a memory I'd like to erase.

I cried, then.

I don't like being alone.

It wasn't much of a funeral. Not the kind of funeral Ignatius Andrew Valentine deserved.

One scared, crying teenage girl trying to work up the courage to press _Yes _on the flashing console display.

_Eject Cargo Pod: Yes / No_

_Eject Cargo Pod: Yes / No_

_Eject Cargo Pod: Yes / No_

But at last, I managed to hit _Yes_, and then my father was gone.

And I was alone.

Nobody was there to mourn his passing except for me. Nobody cried for the death of one more Flash-fried junkie…

Except for me.

After a couple days I managed to get things together, file the paperwork on Dad's death, transfer the _Maru _to my possession, restart the business…but frankly I'd really like to forget all of it.

But most especially the image of my father's corpse.

I wish to God, I wish to Rev's Divine, I wish to whatever deity may or may not exist—I wish that I could forget.

But I can't.

And time doesn't heal all wounds.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: And so _Andromeda _ends, not with a bang but a whimper...sigh.  
**Vee07**: Thanks for reviewing! As I posted on EI, this story is a total of six installments.

Enjoy.

Please read & review.

* * *

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears  
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears  
And I held your hand through all of these years  
But you still have  
All of me

Old Earth Song Lyrics  
Evanescence  
circa 2000AD

* * *

Well, it's not really that simple, Trance. Flash is a synaptic enhancer. It makes you stronger, better, faster. Dad always said it made a great solution if you don't make it your...problem.

Capt. Rebeka B. Valentine  
circa CY 10087

* * *

At the end...that was the worst. 

He was sick for months before he died, you know. It was awful.

He cried sometimes. Sometimes he cried about what a bad father he'd been to me. Sometimes he cried out for Rafe, who had been missing in action for years. Sometimes it was my mother's name on his lips.

Sometimes he cried out for _one more hit, Rocket, please, please, just one more hit…_

And through it all, I sat beside him and tried to comfort him.

He had hallucinations, at the end. Magog. Nietzscheans. Drug dealers he owed money to, quite possibly. More than once I found him shooting up his room in a terror, convinced he was surrounded by enemies trying to gun him down.

And each time, I would gently maneuver him back to his bed, take the gun from his fingers, and promise him that he'd be safe.

I took care of him. Me, a skinny little teenager who fancied herself a pilot, no medical training beyond basic first aid, and I was completely responsible for him as he became more and more incapacitated in his illness. I took care of him and I took care of the _Maru _and I took care of the business. My first experience with being a parental figure was mothering Daddy through his sickness.

I grew up real fast.

Not fast enough.

I couldn't fix him.

Nobody could. I get that now.

There was too much wrong with him. He was too sick. The years of Flash abuse had taken too much toll on his body. It was too late for him.

I know that now.

Now.

But then? All I knew was that my dad was sick and I couldn't heal him, he needed me more than ever and I didn't know how to be there for him.

All I knew was failure.

And I loved him so much.


	4. Chapter 4

**Vee017**: Thanks for sticking with me. ;) Hope you enjoy this part.

Everyone: Please read and review.

* * *

You used to captivate me  
By your resonating light  
Now I'm bound by the life you left behind  
Your face it haunts  
My once pleasant dreams  
Your voice it chased away  
All the sanity in me

Old Earth Song Lyrics  
Evanescence  
circa 2000AD

* * *

You know, whenever I think about my father, I picture him at the end. I try not to, but…I still do. It was hard. I have to just remember that those were just a few years in a long life. When I was a kid, when he was young, he was the _best_, Trance. He was smart, and funny, and tough. And brave. He could make me laugh until my sides hurt. No matter how dark things got, and no matter how long the odds, he _always_…always came up with a plan. The right plan. I wish you could've met him, Trance.

Capt. Rebeka B. Valentine  
circa CY 10087

* * *

I loved him so much.

And I have so many _good _memories of him.

Almost all of them are before Rafe left, and most before my mother left, but they're still good memories.

Daddy taught me how to fly the _Maru_ before I could walk. He called me his _Booster Rocket _and swore I'd be the best slipstream pilot in three galaxies and predicted that I'd be the youngest pilot on record to be FTA-licensed.

When I finally got my license, a year after he died, I couldn't stop thinking about how proud he'd be.

For my eighth birthday, he and I left Mom and Rafe on the _Maru_. He took me to Infinity Atoll, and he taught me how to surf. For a whole week, it was "Whatever Rocket wants, Rocket gets."

One of the few times in my life I've actually enjoyed being planetside. And it was due far more to Daddy than to Infinity.

Once, when I was nine, we had a cargo shipment to Teagan Drift. And while Daddy and everybody were all busy with unloading the cargo and dealing with messengers and pavement, Rafe and I decided to go exploring. We made it to the market area of the drift and then got separated and I got hopelessly lost.

I was scared. The drift seemed so huge to me. I couldn't find Rafe and I couldn't find the _Maru _and I was afraid to talk to anyone and somehow I ended up in the seediest, nastiest area of the drift, surrounded by thugs and gangsters, druggies and lushes, thieves and murderers.

And that's where Daddy found me.

I was crying and trying not to draw attention to myself, desperately searching for a way out of there. He found me and hugged me and told me how worried he'd been, how everybody had been looking for me like crazy. He kissed me and brought me back to the _Maru_.

He was my hero.

And, of course, there was my tenth birthday, and the candied eggs.

I remember how happy Rafe and I were to see him, because he'd been gone for a couple weeks and the two of us had been running the _Maru _with the help of Evanson, Daddy's then-engineer. I remember him laughing and saying how happy he was to see us and apologizing for being gone. I remember him telling us he had a surprise for us in honor of me turning 'the big one-oh'.

I remember the amused look on his face while we hunted down the eggs and taunted each other with who had more.

But Sid says my memories are wrong. That _he _was the one who planted the eggs and watched us find them. That Daddy was sleeping off a Flash binge.

So who's right? Sid or me?

And if my memories of my tenth birthday are wrong, what about my other memories? Maybe Daddy wasn't the one to teach me to surf, and maybe Rafe was the one who found me on Teagan, and maybe…

Maybe Sid's lying. Sid's always lying. He has to have lied about this too.

I won't believe that my father wasn't the man I remember, the man I love. Sid's a liar, it's what he does.

But maybe my subconscious has rewritten my memories so that I _can _believe that my father was the man I want him to be.

Why can't I trust my own memories?

I hate this.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N**: Ugh. Sorry for the delay, but I've had personal problems, work problems, and problems with FFN's new format. I think I've got it all worked out now, though. So if anybody's still reading this, you're getting two chapters at once! The final two chapters, but hey, it's better than being left hanging, right? Right? Anybody hear me? Am I talking to empty cyberspace? Sorry, I'm tired. On to the final two chapters: 

* * *

These wounds won't seem to heal  
This pain is just too real  
There's just too much that time cannot erase

Old Earth Song Lyrics  
Evanescence  
circa 2000AD

* * *

Look, I'm not my father, OK? I'm not an addict. I can stop any time I want.

Capt. Rebeka B. Valentine  
circa CY 10087

* * *

Can I ever be more than my father? Or am I doomed to replay his life in my own twisted way?

Every morning I wake up craving Flash. Every night I go to sleep dreaming about Flash. I'm just like him. An addict.

I don't know if I can ever get past that. I don't know if I'll ever be anything but an addict.

And I hate it.

I wonder if Daddy hated it too? I wonder if he loathed Flash as much as I do, if he woke up and wished he could just carve out the part of himself that wanted it.

I wonder if he tried to go clean.

I wonder if he loved Rafe and me as much as we loved him.

And I wonder…

Is the way he felt for Mom the way I felt for Bobby? Or Leydon? Or any number of other jerks I thought I loved?

Did he break his friends' hearts the way I broke mine? Did the looks on their faces when they discovered he was a junkie, untrustworthy, stick with him to the end, the way Harper's face sticks with me? _So help me, you have got to get off my back or I will dump you back on that trash heap where I found you!_

Did he blame himself?

And the most pressing question, the one that's never been far from my mind almost since he died…

Would he be proud of me?

If he knew where I am today?

I'm doing good honest work for a noble cause. I'm restoring civilization to this chaotic universe. I have friends. I have respect.

I have a drug addiction I battle everyday. I have fleeting relationships with men who love me and leave me. I can't even trust my own memories.

_Does _time heal all wounds?

Or will I be carrying around a little girl's broken heart for the rest of my life?


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone  
But though you're still with me  
I've been alone all along

Old Earth Song Lyrics  
Evanescence  
circa 2000AD

* * *

It's funny. You and Sid built this ship together, and looking around, I can see little touches of both of you everywhere. You designed the bar, Sid installed the weapons locker…and now being here, it's like having a little angel…and a little devil sitting on each shoulder. Give me a sign, Dad. What would you do?

Capt. Rebeka B. Valentine  
circa CY 10089

* * *

I'm still standing here in the middle of _Maru_, the same place Daddy lived for so damn long, when I hear the airlock doors open and the heavy, clumping footsteps of someone coming inside. I turn to see whoever it is.

And am briefly disappointed when I see that it's Dylan.

He looks at me questioningly, clearly wondering what I'm thinking about locked away on the _Maru _all by myself. And he is my friend…and he does care…so I tell him.

"I used to think I could feel him here. My father," I add at his uncomprehending look. "I used to think that maybe his ghost lived in these walls. He was watching over me. Protecting me."

I used to talk to him. Back when I first started running the salvage business by myself, right after he died. I talked to the _Maru _and I talked to Daddy, and sometimes I wasn't even sure which one I was addressing. But I was convinced that he could hear me.

I was convinced that he cared about what happened to me.

"But it's not true," I say, my voice harsher than I intended it to be, but I suddenly realize to my horror that I'm struggling against tears. I can't even look at Dylan. "My father is gone," I push on. "And no amount of wishing from a little girl with a broken heart can make that untrue."

"Maybe you're right," Dylan answers me and walks over to rejoin me. "Maybe there is no ghost living in the walls of this ship." He gestures around the _Maru_.

My home. All that I have left of Daddy, except for my own emotional wounds.

"Your father isn't gone," Dylan continues gently. "His ghost is still very much with you. That ghost lives here—" and he reaches out to tap my heart. "And he always will, as long as you accept him for the man he was, and forgive him for being as flawed as the rest of us." He smiles at me. "Your father isn't gone. He's still here."

Duty done, Dylan smiles at me one last time, and then he leaves me alone with my thoughts.

Somehow, Dylan's little speech completely fails to make me feel better. The fact that it's a mass of clichés probably doesn't help, but still.

"Accept him for the man he was."

But who was he? The man I remember? Or the man Sid tells me he was?

Maybe he was a little of both. Maybe he was devoted father _and _Flash addict.

Maybe he loved me as much as I loved him but couldn't always show it.

And Dylan's wrong—my father _is _still in the _Maru_. Little traces of his soul, of his life, of who he was, are scattered throughout the ship.

And somehow…recognizing that—recognizing the fuzzy dice he gave me for my fourteenth birthday, the marks left on the walls from him shooting at hallucinations, the bar he installed, every bolt and circuit he labored over building this ship—somehow recognizing everything he put into the _Maru _makes me feel better.

While I don't feel _good _by any means, and I still can't help thinking that I may damn well end up the same way Daddy did, I do feel enough 'better' to stay standing.

And I guess, in the end…that's all you can ask for.

To still be on your feet at the end of the day.

_Eject Cargo Pod: Yes / No_

_Yes_

_

* * *

_

And "My Immortal" is officially over. -sad-


End file.
